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Gaming / Re: Sonic Classic Collection
« on: December 06, 2009, 02:38:17 AM »
There are those devs who would like to see decent Sonic games, though. The Rush games are proof positive of that to me. Rush Adventure stepped up the level design, but at the same time, bogged the game down with extra mission and collection crap.
Control mechanics may be hit-or-miss with new Sonics, but they do hit from time to time. What Sega has consistently forgotten is replay value. They bog the games down with extra menial tasks/game modes thinking it'll extend the play time, which it does, but it also kills your desire to replay it. Super forms are part of replay value which is one reason I make a big stink over it. Another is how to properly handle alternate characters (see S3&K). Character abilities which are different and useful, but do not mandate a separate stage type.
Shadow The Hedgehog was close, though. I'm not the biggest fan of a hedgehog with guns, mind you, but if you're going to add an extra ability Shadow is how you do it: You add it as a supplement to the core abilities, not as a completely new character type. What mainly killed the game there was the at times overly strict objectives (still beats the hell out of Heroes' Team Chaotix, though) and the fact that some idiot decided to make 10 endings instead of 5.
On your comments on sale-motivation mentality, how they'll not try to improve as long as sales are strong, is that you don't know how they'll respond when they're weak. As long as it sells, they keep trying, and with little exception the soundtrack at least usually justifies a Sonic purchase. It stops selling, they might not redouble their efforts. They might just figure, "people don't like Sonic anymore" and let him die. See ZX.
Control mechanics may be hit-or-miss with new Sonics, but they do hit from time to time. What Sega has consistently forgotten is replay value. They bog the games down with extra menial tasks/game modes thinking it'll extend the play time, which it does, but it also kills your desire to replay it. Super forms are part of replay value which is one reason I make a big stink over it. Another is how to properly handle alternate characters (see S3&K). Character abilities which are different and useful, but do not mandate a separate stage type.
Shadow The Hedgehog was close, though. I'm not the biggest fan of a hedgehog with guns, mind you, but if you're going to add an extra ability Shadow is how you do it: You add it as a supplement to the core abilities, not as a completely new character type. What mainly killed the game there was the at times overly strict objectives (still beats the hell out of Heroes' Team Chaotix, though) and the fact that some idiot decided to make 10 endings instead of 5.
On your comments on sale-motivation mentality, how they'll not try to improve as long as sales are strong, is that you don't know how they'll respond when they're weak. As long as it sells, they keep trying, and with little exception the soundtrack at least usually justifies a Sonic purchase. It stops selling, they might not redouble their efforts. They might just figure, "people don't like Sonic anymore" and let him die. See ZX.
JoD was not exactly a shining example of how to make a great game, any more than Billy Hatcher was, but I don't think either game could be construed as scraping the bottom of the barrel of game design, as some of Sonic's last few games.Although I will attach the disclaimer that I have not been, nor will be in the foreseeable future, able to play Sonic '06, I must strenuously disagree with that statement. JoD is worse than Heroes, worse than Shadow, worse than any new-age Sonic game I have ever played. At least the Sonic games look good. At least they sound good. And at least their control inputs have a tendency to actually work. JoD couldn't even get the damn Wii remote pointer right. The SYSTEM MENU outperforms it in control, that is damn sadder than any Sonic I have played. The only thing that even competes with that is Sonic Genesis, which is a port quality issue and not a game design issue.
) come from the mission system. It's a bit overly strict, particularly the "destroy all of a particular enemy" ones. In a side-scroller, enemies tend to be more in-the-way, so it'd be a lot harder for that one critter to slip out of your sight and force you to warp back throughout the stage looking for it.
